INTRODUCTION
The Avant Garde of the twentieth century is the one that involves the most lasting revolution in a century of revolutions: the technological revolution. Primarily started by inventions outside the boundaries of the world of art, technology based art (comprising a range of practises from photography to film to video to virtual reality) has directed art into areas once dominated by engineers and technicians. Experimental cinema resists the basic narrative structure that a usual mainstream product follows. It exhibits a disorderly connection between all the elements in a film. Over the years, various developments have influenced alternations in consumption and production practices of experimental cinema. In most situations these developments (for example video and computer) have benefited artists and have enabled them to consider themselves as part of a technological revolution. The numerous possibilities that are offered by these developments sometimes excite them and on some occasions alienate them from the process, artists associated with experimental cinema usually do not get involved in the commercialized use of the new technologies, and they instead seek to make personal statements through their practice without regard of the commodity value of what they do[1]. However, the technology accessible at present is not a product of a small period of time but has evolved over years. The history of the twentieth century media art is linked to the developments in photography, with it people began to participate in the manipulation of time itself by capturing, reconfiguring, creating variations on it with time lapses, fast forward, slow motion and all those other time related phrases relevant to the art and science of photography[2].
An evident fact about experimental cinema is that process is most important and not the object[3]. Process by the importance assigned to it, makes it impossible for any kind of consistency or linearity to be formed, when it comes to making a film or watching one, as it dominatingly becomes the main purpose of vision. Peter Gidal (London Film Co-op, 1968) states that the enormous significance given to the idea of process also gave rise to the problem of fetishising it and process became just an image, an image of process. Hence, it can be argued that the various alterations that technological developments proposed or facilitated were to an extent seen as a challenge to the institutional idea of process in experimental cinema.
The Present Scenario
One of the primary concerns have been the survival of art as a separate speciality or field, the digital revolution and the convergence of technologies to an extent have threatened the existence of art by initiating alternations. Even though TV, fibre optics and global satellite systems are considered the future of arts, there clearly has been a resistance to consumer ideology (a consumers unconscious habits of mind such as beliefs, assumptions and expectations) which is concealed in the digital vision; this sort of technological determinism in the present scenario has forced artists to defend the critical function of art and culture in advancing societies[4]. Perhaps such action revels how consumerism has replaced capitalism, by focusing entirely on exploiting resources.
However, Ress contemplates this battle in a way by not placing a lone artist against this huge mega-media culture. He says for example it is wrong to bluntly polarise the ‘handmade’ ethic of the formal-structural avant garde that has always argued that film or video are forms of art media with certain properties, almost opposite to the presently converging multi-media technologies[5].
Technology has influenced changes to experimental cinema in different ways for many years now. These modern day developments are not a manifestation of an overnight technological revolution and have their roots going back in history. For example developments such as those made by the Whitney brothers (abstract electronic experiments in the 1940s) resulted in the birth of lyrical and mythic abstraction and also their own role in computer research; and it was Gene Youngblood who produced words such as paleocybernetics, the inter media network, popular culture and noosphere, the artist as a design scientist, global closed circuit and many more which are widely used[6]. While such developments took place in America, Britain also displayed an interchange between art and technology. Le Grice, who probably more than anyone else, represented ‘structural filmmaking’ made computer based experiments in the 1960s, likewise Gustav Metzger’s auto destructive art also pioneered the computer based arts in the same decade[7].
Ress writes about Metzger, ‘‘as with the machine style art of Eduardo Paolozzi in his early printmaking series (for example, ‘As Is When’,1965), it was the post modernity of these media, and their insistently automatic processes which sidestep the artist’s personal signature, which were central lures of electronic image-making.’’ Hence, it is evident that the above mentioned developments paved the path for future revolutions and also legitimise that experimental cinema has undergone alterations from the very beginning.
The debate has been going on since the 1970s between experimental filmmakers and the new video art movement. This has been the result of the difference in perspectives of different generations and also around the argument that media/technology endangered filmmaking mostly by commercialising the entire process. However some like David Hall, former sculptor and film maker defended the video making faction, by arguing that there were some institutional differences between the two media’s, these were the relation of video to television (not cinema), the real time aspect of video, its directness as a medium and its basis in electronic signals rather than photochemical images were some formal characteristics that made up the distinctive character of video as an art practice[8].
In the last two decades video has received greater acceptance and extended in the wider culture. There was a massive change in the sense of time and place occurred in the last 20 years, the visual sensation of the present time became inseparable from its temporal components and video attracted artists for the range of spontaneity and simultaneity that it made possible[9]. The lightweight camcorder replaced the awkward Portapak (the first portable camera that had inspired Paik, Hopkins and Hall) there have been changes in formats of video from spooled tape to compact cassette. Rapid video cutting was made possible for the first time by Sony in the early 1980s that also resulted in the rise of scratch video. Also tapes were combined on high definition video and scanned back to 35mm negative film for cinema release and domestic VHS tapes for home distribution[10]. Technology made exhibition and distribution a lot less complicated for experimental film maker. We will now analyse the changes and challenges that experimental cinema has witnessed in the form of video, computer art and digitalisation.
VIDEO: A revolution?
‘‘Video art is part of a broader shift from the representational tradition of visual art to one engaged in the more presentational mode of the ‘theatrical’, incorporating the sense of the here and now, of the viewer participating in the very space of the object, images and action.’’
Daniel Palmer
and the word is also used in many different ways. Palmer’s above mentioned quotation also demonstrates the same; it refers to some video art but cannot be considered in relation to all video art. The conventions and properties that comprise video (such as interlacing, frames, display resolution, aspect ratio, colour space etc) have to a large extent been inherited from properties from the earlier mediums including radio, theatre and to an extent film[11]. Korean born Nam June Paik is credited as the pioneer of video art, for his footage shot in the autumn of 1965 of Pope Paul VI’s procession through New York City shooting with his Sony Portapak. American artists gained access to video in the early 1960s,before the British artists...Its arrival in the United Kingdom is very interesting as initially very few were able to gain access to this new, expensive and weighty technology.
The video culture that had stimulated a lot of filmmakers in America also inspired people like John Hopkins to establish the first British TV workshop and research centre, TVX in London. Hopkins’ initiative shaped the video-culture in the coming years. The TVX planned to operate in and through electronic media; and David Curtis facilitated the exhibition of famous products of avant garde and experimental cinema here[12]. Hopkins along with Sue Hall founded the ‘Fantasy Factory’ that went on for over 30 years. Later the BBC came up with its own Community Programmes Unit based on Hopkins’ model. The unit also produced Video Nation (1994) and Video Dairies (1990-95) with a similar idea of TVX’s public access and programme making[13].A common feature of these establishments was their acceptance of the digital technologies and the intention to find ways by which its user could reshape products. But this intention was defeated as it was difficult for the artists to use television transmission (that seemed like an extension of anti-gallery and anti-high art movement) in the UK, and bodies such as BBC and ITV were difficult to get in to. Due to this problem of ‘access’ the video movement is said to have fractured into three divisions. Rees states that one of the branches of ‘video artists’ wanted to focus on the conditions of video as a mode of perception and production; the other one including those who made artist’s video, was inspired by artists such as Bruce Nauman and Rebecca Horn and wanted to use video to reject traditional media; and the third group took up the cause of community art, based on Hopkins’ model[14]. These division and difference in approach to video art for example different kinds of video practices ( use of technological mean to generate visual imagery, including formal research into plastic elements; considerable range of recordings Conceptual Art actions or happenings, often concentrated on the body of the artists himself; guerrilla video; combination of camera ,monitors in sculptures, environment and installations; live performances using video; combination of advanced video research most often video with computers[15]) resulted in absence of developed theories of video. Hence, it can be argued that video augmented the gap between the different factions of artists and generations. The new possibilities that it initiated, allowed the artists to experiment with their ideas. Technical difficulties such as the fundamental impossibility of editing on the then available VTR, discouraged artists’ interests. They became less interested in filmic conventions such as montage, and began to use closed circuit systems and instant playback; some of the other outdated technologies of the 1960s and 1970s were vidicon tubes in early cameras, open reel to reel video tape recorders and etc[16].
By keeping these in mind we can argue that improvements made on these features, helped in releasing artists from technical difficulties and provided them with more scope of experimentation and expression.
The rebellion occurred in 1980s, with a number of low tech 8mm and fast cut videos; ‘scratch’ video makers re-edited the TV footage of Reagan with Thatcher and mainly used montage to create parody[17]. ‘Scratch’ (that was made popular by the British art collective Gorilla Tapes during the early 1980s) soon caught the eye of TV executives, and became a common technique in advertisements. The commercialisation that was taking place now temporarily united the remaining factions of avant garde and the ones to demonstrate the most hostile opposition were the structuralists[18]. The other faction that supported anti- commercialism was the political narrative filmmakers. The journal Undercut (81-90) by the London Filmmakers Co-Op(with the initial aim to provide access to film-making; film availability; open exhibition and distribution) established by people such as Stephen Dwoskin and David Curtis published contributions against the commercialisation of art and later when film and video were merged in editing this was seen as an anti-purist gesture[19](however this was soon commercially exploited and remains so).This decade also witnessed the coming together of the scratch movement and the low budget promo and they merged into a third group with 8mm filmmakers in the New Romantics camp. This saw the acceptance of the commercial area that was inspired by popular culture[20] as they distanced themselves from their ‘purist’ or ‘modernist’ or gallery/fine art predecessors; did not indulge in theory and took great interest in popular culture (the most famous example of this being the interaction of such people with the development of pop or music videos). The 1980s was also called the era of ‘New Pluralism’, as not only did it indicate the decline of boundaries in the film and video movement but also the spread of new media in current art. This was also a period in which video was losing its identity, the ‘meltdown factor’ proposed by TV producer and animator John Wyver highlighted the fact that the distinction between television and video art was fading due to the impact of the media revolution, and it was in the better interests of the artist to accept the new environment[21]. Artists resisted this notion of assimilation to digitalisation, filmmakers such as Michael Maziere opposed the notion of ‘meltdown’ by arguing that digitalisation extended opportunities for artists without compromising on their expressions and explorations and did not necessarily put them in the same category that was shared by TV and popular culture.
Another wave of rebellion came from the YBA artists (Young British Artists) who had graduated in the 1990s. They were divided between those who favoured low-grade media like Super-8 or VHS and those who accepted digitalisation and entered the galleries (rejecting the anti-gallery movement of previous generations). Rees states that, ‘‘on the whole they were more interested in image and event than in perception and structure; the spectator is an observer of the work rather than an active participant[22].’’
TRANSOFORMATION IN THEMES
Apart from influencing artists and giving way to transformation, video also initiated a transformation in the aesthetic ideas of the artists; one such example could be a transformation in ‘themes’. Female artists displayed greater acceptance of video, as it was cheap, easy to operate and allowed them to work alone, and in many situations these filmmakers dealt intimately with their bodies while filming. To an extent it is said that the avant garde provided them with opportunities that they were deprived of in the mainstream[23]. However, female filmmakers had challenged the male bias that was present in avant garde.
If we consider the female video artists of the 1990s, we can see that they dealt with low tech performative styles (that were present in videos by female filmmakers during the 1970s).Sadie Benning (a self described lesbian filmmaker), an American artist in the 1980s kept the improvisational spirit of the early videos in her narratives (very personal in nature). She used a toy camera manufactured by Fisher Price that recorded pixelated, black and white video images onto standard audio tapes. Her videos were complex narrative collages, they had images of random objects such as toys, movie, windows and her face expressed identity. In her videos such as A New Year (1989), If Every Girl Had a Diary (1990), and Flat Is Beautiful (1998) Benning has dealt with themes of young girls experiencing sexual maturity and desires. In all these videos she has used herself as the centre of main focus in isolated surroundings. A New Year shows a side of Sadie that is shy and conscious, away from the front of the camera using her surroundings, in this case her bedroom and the window to depict her feelings of perplexity and alienation. The title of her film Flat Is Beautiful was inspired from an old 70s t-shirt that promoted women with flat chests, Sadie constantly dealt with such themes.Sadie commented in one of her interviews that she did not like to talk and her messages were in the form of hand written text, music; she wanted to substitute objects, the things that were around her to illustrate events and so she used anything-television, her dog, etc[24]. In all her works she has explored her sexual identity and transition from a girl to a woman. She also used pop-culture to construct her message, very often images on television and movies would frustrate her and inspire her to react. In Cosmetic/ Not Cosmetic (1993-94) she has questioned the various stereotypes attached to women, she destroys a vanity box with a drilling machine while she is dressed up in a satin slip[25].
Coming to male video artists, the new trend was to adopt a lyrical track in work that tackled questions of identity[26]. They dealt with themes such as expressions of longing. Russian filmmaker Alexandr Sokurov, who has debuted as many as four of his films at Cannes demonstrates a profound search of self in his work. His works Solsatskiy Son (1995) and Oriental Elegy (1996) are some that demonstrate such emotions. Oriental Elegy a dreamscape filmed on a remote Japanese island in which the characters emerge hanging between life and death.Sokurov raises questions about finding and understanding the idea of happiness; the idea of life and death; the eternal longing and the complicatedness of life. There is a sense of longing and loss throughout, the music and depiction of lonely objects such as an empty old house, a dimly lit lantern and organisms such as seagulls and insects have been used to all a melancholy touch.
Hence, from the above discussion it is evident that not only did video made revolutionary transformations to experimental cinema at various stages, on most occasions by facilitating their artistic requirements, it also instigated some of the most fashionable rebellion in its history.
THE TRANFORMATIONS INITATED BY DIGITALISATION AND COMPUTERS.
Computer, during the 1960 was initiation by people who were mostly engineers and scientist as they had access to computing resources. But very soon artists began to explore the possibility of using computer to produce artistic ideas and also to become a part of the process. The most attractive capability of computer was its ability to produce multiple outputs with continuous variety by using three methods namely permutation, random number generation and the use of systems of incrementation[27]. This gave them an opportunity to explore and experiment into the unknown. However it was evident to artists who wanted to explore the possibilities facilitated by computers, that any technology needed to make outstanding contributions to art and should have the ability to enable process and deliver results that were not possible with the help of existing mediums of technology, in order to gain validity and be accepted widely. Malcomn Le Grice, argues that the justified reasons for artists to use computers was only if it could produce something that other available mediums could not and another was to produce work easily without compromising on the ‘meaning’[28].This idea of validating any technology before it can be used, perhaps was one of the primitive precautions to keep technology out of art and in this case experimental cinema.
As computers had not been designed to produce films, there were limited ways of using computers to achieve output; these were done placing the camera in front of a visual display system such as PDP11, or the microfilm plotter like SC 4020 which was extremely slow and inflexible as compared to the first one[29]. One the few film makers who used digital computers were John Whitney, in films such as Permutations (1968) and Matrix III (1972).Its predecessor Matrix has been credited for not only producing abstract sequences for later manipulations but attempting to define a language of motion graphics; there is a development toward a structure as a whole, and all the developments and transitions are an important part of the program[30].A similar exploration takes place in Matrix III with an interplay of dots, shapes, squares, and lines. Evidently, the use of computer in film during the 1960s and 1970s resulted in inclusion of their ideas and requirements in this ‘technology’ initially dominated by science.
Digital technologies are today producing a convergence of all preceding media: sound, text, image and their various forms and also placing them within a new stage or setting, which can be that of a library, cinema, theatre or home[31]. The ongoing changes have influenced experimental filmmakers (and also artists) in the post film and video era, where digital forms have largely replaced the previous forms. Such a massive form of digitalisation has also caused a kind of disappearance of boundaries. The lack of division has only grown bigger in present times and will continue, for example the birth of technological advancements such as high definition television (HDTV), 3D Television and Blue –Ray disc have further diminished the existing boundaries. Stephen Partridge comments that ‘video was always a bastard medium- an inherited collection of conventions and properties from earlier media and has been substituted now[32].
The greatest challenge that has been posed by digitalisation is to the idea of transforming and supporting an artistic language on the ‘material’ conditions of a medium. The modernist principal of integration between medium and the symbolic dialogues may withstand and support artistic success of one particular work, but it is not possible to sustain the concept of general dialogue based on media specificity (cause of the inclusive nature of digital technology), hence now the aim of present technological developments is to achieve a time-based auditory and visual capacity which is continuous with the forms and language developed from the history of cinema[33]. To an extent such an invention maybe able to bridge the gap and overcome the complication of supporting language and art on a material. But one the use of digital technology in film and art is the wide of computer in production process such as in the case of editing.
The extensive use of electronic or digital technologies by artists and the general cultural effect of mass media has been a matter of concern; Post-modernism has responded to this social and cultural change and has also acknowledged the difficulty of maintaining the concept of specificity of the medium[34]. It can be argued that this is not a recent development and had begun years when technology was in its developmental stages aiding the production of cinematic recording and presentation or representation. Some of these stages are the photochemical/ mechanical; analogue electronic and digital electronic (relatively recent to the other two). The various technologies present today have incorporated these functions. There are certain aspects of digitalisation that provide openings for improvement in artistic forms. Some of these are[35]
- ‘Digitalisation of cinematic images’: specific definition of every element making an image, in a specific stored element or as an outcome of an algorithm/formula;
- ‘Digitalisation of sound’: higher possibility of manipulation and intervention when sound is recorded digitally;
- ‘Sequence and Temporality’: the fundamental feature that storage of the date recorded does not need to rely on its recording sequence;
- ‘Authorship’: the possibility of the artist to increase the role of spectator in construction by using maximum technology. These are some practical ways in which digitalisation has improved and made room for further development.
Other areas where the influences of digitalalisation have been felt in experimental cinema are: Abstract film, Transformed Image Film, Non Narrative Film and Expanded Cinema. Also, it is evident that in most situations technological developments in these areas are results of previous actions and experiments.
The cinematic ides and discourses of the abstract films present in the computer films of 1960s have originated from the earlier experiments carried out in the early 1920s (the abstraction of visual qualities and their synthesis in a new language of visual music); in transformed image films the attempts made to change photographic images by the use of technical devices (such as by Malcolm Le Grice in Berlin House in 1970); the similarity in the aim of Non- Narrative cinema and experimental cinema (search for structure that does not confirm linear narratives form)[36], Maya Deren’s Meshes of the Afternoon (1943) serves as an example in which Deren establishes a significant theoretical idea which enforces non linear interpretations[37]. Expanded cinema’s definitions have been under debate. However one of the forms that brings cinematic experience into the space of the spectator through performed installations and actions.
These diverse illustrations help understand that digitalisation may be a recent development, but it heredity lies in the early years of experimental cinema and the motive has primarily been to incorporate the requirement of expression of artistic reflections in modern technology.
CONCLUSION
Throughout the history of experimental cinema, various factors have facilitated the growth of technological advancements. The developments that have taken place in the twentieth century, share a lot of resemblance to the evolution of technology in nineteenth century. The new-digital age and technologies have been successful in benefiting contemporary artists in many ways for example for providing digital cameras and editing at a lower cost. The end of the twentieth century has witnessed video art in numerous ways through narratives, formal experimentations, short humours tapes; video also gained a status of authenticity and prominence, which wasn’t the case in 1980s.
To conclude, digital technologies have provided artists with a more comprehensive and flexible podium for cultural practises, where factors such as hybridisation and diminishing boundaries between various forms do not matter as much as the ignorance of the process by the artists. The idea of seeing technological advancements as a challenge or facilitating agents of ‘rebellion’ isn’t new and there has been confrontation by different factions in all generations. In experimental cinema, the search for context, inspires filmmakers to consider various themes such as aesthetics to politics, and they always challenge the major codes of dramatic realism that determine meaning and response in the commercial fiction film. Video, computer and digitalisation are some developments that have facilitated this search.
BIBLOGRAPHY
- Grice, Le Malcolm. Experimental Cinema in the Digital Age. BFI Publishing, 2006
- Hatfield, Jackie. Experimental Film and Video. John Libbey Publishing, 2006
- Hill, John and Pamela Church Gibson. World Cinema: Critical Approaches. Oxford University Press, 2000
- Knight, Julia. Diverse Practices: A Critical Reader on British Video Art, University of Luton Press, 1996
- Popper, Frank. Art of the Electronic Age. London: Thames & Hudson, 1993
- Rees. A.L. A History of Experimental Film and Video. BFI Publishing, 1999
- Rush, Michael. New Media in Late 20th –Century Art. Thames & Hudson Ltd, 1999
- Tyler, Parker. Underground Film : A Critical History. Penguin Books, 1969
- A New Year (1989, directed by Sadie Benning)
- Cosmetic/Not Cosmetic (1994, directed by Sadie Benning)
- Flat Is Beautiful (1998, directed by Sadie Benning)
- Matrix III (1972, directed by John Whitney)
- Meshes of the Afternoon (1943, directed by Maya Deren)
- Ocean Elegy (1996, directed by Alexandr Sokurov)
- Soldatskiy Son (1995, directed by Alexandr Sokurov)
[1] Rush, Michael. New Media in Late 20th – Century Art. P 9,Thames & Hudson Ltd, 1999.
[2] Rush,op.cit., p 12
[3] Ibid. p 22
[4] Ress, A L. A History of Experimental Film and Video. P 111, BFI Publishing, 1999.
[5] Ibid. p 111
[6] Ibid. p 111
[7] Ibid. p 112
[8] Rees, op.cit., p 112
[9] Popper, Frank. Art of the Electronic Age. p 56, London: Thames & Hudson, 1993
[10]Rees,op.cit.,p 177
[11] Hatfield, Jackie. Experimental Film and Video. P 181,John Libbey Publishing, 2006
[12] Rees op.cit., p 88
[13] Ibid. p 88
[14] Rees,op.cit.,. p 89
[15] Popper, op.cit, p 55
[16] Hatfield, op.cit., p 185
[17] Rees, op.cit. , p 96
[18] Ibid. p 96
[19] Ibid. p 77
[20] Ibid. p 96
[21] Rees,op.cit., p 104
[22] Ibid. p 108
[23] Hill, John and Pamela Church Gibson. World Cinema: Critical Approaches. P 23, Oxford University Press,2000
[24] Smith, Gavin. Toy Stories: Film Comment Nov/Dec98, Vol. 34 Issue 6, p28, 1998
[25] Rush, op.cit. , p 111
[26] Ibid. p 111
[27] Grice, Le Malcolm. Experimental Cinema in the Digital Age. p 220, BFI, 2006
[28] Ibid. p 221
[29] Ibid. p 222
[30] Grice,op.cit., p 230
[31] Hatfield, op.cit. , p 180
[32] Ibid. p 181
[33] Grice, op.cit. , p 282
[34] Ibid. p 311
[35] Ibid. p 239 & p 240
[36] Grice, op.cit. , p 317-318
[37] Ibid. p 318
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